Product Description

This familiar semi-hollow design is showcased on a rich natural finish mahogany body with f-hole and an attractive white pearloid pickguard. The gloss maple neck sports 21 medium-jumbo frets and a modern 9.5-inch radius.

Other features include vintage-style tuners and a three-saddle bridge. A custom set of alnico V single-coil pickups provides warmth and clarity, and enough punch for country, blues, rock and jazz.

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This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
"way better than the Fender tele i played back in 1970"

Sound:
The pickups on the 'original' tele, particularly the bridge pickup, always sounded a little thin to me. In contrast , the CV thinline pickups are much more musical... still bright but richer, a quality that may be partly due to the extra resonance of the chambered body. Really nice sustain that illustrates how wrong headed we use to be about needing a heavy guitar to get good sustain. completely wrong.
Feature:
One of the main reasons i decided to try this guitar is to have something that didn't feel like a cinder block hanging around my neck at the end of the night. Many of my other guitars are American made guitars from the late 70's early 80's - great guitars but way heavier than this tele. The CV tele has a light but resonant mahogany body.. seems to be chambered on upper and lower bouts with a solid block through the middle. The neck looks like a single maple billet .. not the straightest tightest grain I've ever seen, but with a center stringer to reinforce it (hopefully) should be stable over time.
Ease of Use:
Great sound... every and any pickup combination. it quacks, it sings and everything in between. Very easy to play, setup was good right out of the box- nut contour to the fingerboard/ string height was right on, and fret work is clean and pretty. I like the quick and easy string change with the center hole tuners.
Quality:
agree with the person who suggested replacing the input jack... mine came apart and i had to 'lift the hood' to reassemble it. That being said, it gave me the opportunity to look under the pick guard. Happy to see the shielding on the backside of the pick guard. wiring appeared clean, pots looked to be fairly standard, pickup selector was a bit too much plastic for my taste, but not an issue for me as I will be dropping in a new 5way selector to add 'pickups wired in series' and 'wired out of phase' to my pickup selections. that being said, all switches work smoothly and feel like good quality in use. The finish is clean with no blemishes. I'd like it better if it were a little thinner, but certainly doesn't seem to hurt the tone one bit as it is.
Value:
Fit and finish on this guitar is equal to the best I've seen at this price point, and better than most. but the true value of the CV Tele is how wonderfully it plays and sounds. I sold a '57 Les Paul Jr to a collector a couple years ago. It was worth a lot more money than this CV Tele, and it had it's charms, but in the end I didn't keep it. I grew up playing a fender tele that in time would become another expensive collector guitar that I wouldn't keep. I am keeping this CV Tele, and in fact it has taken the top spot in my guitar rotation. Value to me is not measured in dollars, but this CV tele is completely worth the price of admission.
Manufacturer Support:
no problem except the input jack and that was a easy fix that didn't merit a service call
The Wow Factor:
Don't let the Squier brand put you off. This is a good looking, lively, great sounding, easy to play, well made and finished guitar with insignificant compromises to reach the price point. The only Telecaster I have played that I want to keep
Overall:
Obviously, I've been playing a long time. I'm not a pro, but play out a few times a year and have a steady weekly rehearsal with a blues harp buddy.Back in high school my regularly my older brother's white Telecaster..a guitar he just sold a few years ago for collector money. I knew that guitar well, and my take on that original is that it was good for a couple 'signature' tones but not much else. Maybe explains why for a guy who has 8 guitars, this is the first tele I ever owned.This Classic Vibe Squire Tele has made a convert of me.. actually more rewarding to play than an 'original' Fender Tele from the late 60's

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"This is the guitar you're looking for..."

Sound:
The neck pickup is pure single-coil Fender sound. In fact, this thing sounds more like a beefy Strat than my Texas Special Strat. The middle position is nice and creamy and the bridge pickup has some serious spank to it.
Feature:
I've read rumors that the pickups in this guitar are unbranded versions of a $160 set. The arguments are pretty compelling, and I have to say, the sound is right on. The looks of this guitar are amazing. It's definitely an eye-catcher.
Quality:
Let's call this the fit and finish section. Notwithstanding my comment under Manufacturer Support, the fit and finish of this guitar are a solid 7 of 10. I have to be hypercritical to find something wrong with this guitar, and so, here are my very minor gripes. The setup was a little out... That is to say, I had to adjust the bridge saddles to fix some fret buzz and do a little intonation with the saddles... And I mean, a VERY little intonation. Picky people like me may want to tweak. Newbies won't know the difference. I pulled the neck and pickguard off and cleaned out some saw dust (which I usually do on all my guitars anyway). Manufacturers seem to be cranking these things out at breakneck pace lately, and they aren't taking the time to clean sawdust out of their factories. Again, not a big deal.
Value:
This is not a just great guitar for the price... This is a very, very good guitar for any price. In fact, this has become my preferred player and I own a few guitars that retail for over $2K. PLUS, if you want to tinker with some guitar electronics, this is the one to do it on. It's wired up dead simple, and cheap enough that you won't feel bad about practicing your soldering on it.
Manufacturer Support:
This is the one big drawback. I bought this as a scratch n dent model, which Zzounds, AMS, MF and all other sellers claim are fully tested and are 100% working according to manufacturer's specs. This is not so. When my Tele arrived, right out of the box, the bridge pickup did not work. After a couple hours of tinkering and wondering, I broke out the multimeter and tested the pickup. It was dead. Contacting Zzounds to get a replacement pickup just yielded a return authorization. I wouldn't have minded them just sending me a new pickup. Instead I wound up just using some of the money I saved to buy a stock replacement.
The Wow Factor:
This is probably the best looking guitar I've owned. The photos on the web site don't really do it justice. Natural, vintage-looking, mahogany finish. Maple neck. Chrome hardware. Very very nice and I'd put it against any of my other guitars for looks.
Overall:
This guitar is a gem. I was an early purchaser of the Highway 1 series from Fender before they realized they were pretty much giving them away and doubled the price. This is on par. Fender/Squier will eventually realize that these things are worth considerably more and jack the price up.

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What Our Customers Are Saying About zZounds "I have ordered from zZounds for several years and the service is always great! Any problems are few and far between and always taken care of instantly!" - Customer on January 8, 2015

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close [x]More ExpectedWe have been given a date of Mar 18 for the arrival of this item. This date is not guaranteed, rather an estimate based on either information obtained directly from the manufacturer or historical delivery data for the specific manufacturer.

A temporary customer reference number is assigned to each customer only while they are shopping on zZounds.com. If you call our customer service department for assistance, this number makes it easier for us to answer any questions you have about products, services or purchases.

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